Dear Thay, dear Sangha,
Forty-six years ago, our teacher traveled from Vietnam to the West, motivated by the deepest kind of aspiration—to end a war. He later wrote in I Have Arrived, I Am Home:
In May 1966, when I left Vietnam, I did not think that I would be gone long. But I was stuck over here.
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Dear Thay, dear Sangha,
Forty-six years ago, our teacher traveled from Vietnam to the West, motivated by the deepest kind of aspiration—to end a war. He later wrote in I Have Arrived, I Am Home:
In May 1966, when I left Vietnam, I did not think that I would be gone long. But I was stuck over here. I felt like a cell precariously separated from its body, like a bee separated from its hive. If a bee is separated from its hive, it knows that it cannot survive. A cell that is separated from its body will dry up and die. But I did not die because I had come to the West not as an individual but with the support of a Sangha and for the sake of the Sangha’s visions. I came to call for peace. …from a cell I have become a body. That body has become the Sangha body we see today. If, wherever we go, we go with our heart full of our Sangha, then we will not dry up and die.
Like a seed transplanted in unfamiliar soil, he struggled, but he and the Sangha were able to thrive beautifully in the West. In 1982, Thich Nhat Hanh founded Plum Village. The seed of his potent practice was growing into a bountiful tree whose flowers have now bloomed all over the world.
This issue celebrates Plum Village as more than a practice center in France. Whether or not we have been to France, we carry the seed of the Plum Village tradition—the seed of mindfulness, of peace—in our hearts. We don’t need to travel anywhere to find Plum Village. Our true home is as close as our own breath.
In these pages, we honor the Plum Village 30th Anniversary and the Wake Up movement: our history and our future. “Plums from the Village” is a sweet handful of memories from the early years. “Roots of Transformation” reveals the heart of our practice—changing mud into lotus flowers. “Journey Home” honors our mothers and the joyful return to a true home. Thanks to the generosity of monastics, particularly Thay Phap Dang, Thay Phap Lu, Sister Eleni, and Brother Phap Tu, as well as Dharma teachers Lyn Fine and Eileen Kiera, this issue includes a treasury of photos from the first decades of Plum Village.
The second half of this special issue celebrates Wake Up, an inspiring worldwide movement of young adults committed to living mindfully (wkup.org). Brother Phap Luu explains that the Wake Up movement began with Thay’s repeated question: “How can we share the practice with young people?” Sister Hanh Nghiem likens Wake Up to the beloved monastic community. Lay practitioners share bright moments from the movement’s short history: Wake Up tours, the creation of a CD for peace, and flash mob meditations (see the beautiful photo in “Peace Sounds”). Members of the European Wake Up Sangha share their vision-in-action for a green kindergarten in Vietnam.
Our teacher’s seed of practice has become numberless flowers: you, me, and thousands of Sangha friends. May this issue inspire us to touch our deepest aspirations and to live with our heart full of Sangha; to live from compassion, for peace.
With love and gratitude,
Natascha Bruckner
True Ocean of Jewels
